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“Planning minister’s war on the countryside” The planning minister said he “couldn’t care who owns the bloody things”. Stealth and de facto Stealing by planning legislation THIS WAS NEVER IN THE COALITION MANIFESTI

Further to my post the truth starts to out.

Nick Boles, the planning minister, attended a meeting with some of the country’s biggest property developers hours after George Osborne’s speech on Wednesday in which he told them he was prepared for an acrimonious battle with countryside campaigners. The Telegraph has obtained a recording of the meeting in which Mr Boles discloses that he is poised to axe the planning permission requirement for many developments. He indicates that the main purpose of a £15.5 billion government package to support homebuyers is to create a building boom. The planning minister said he “couldn’t care who owns the bloody things”. In the Budget, the Chancellor announced that the Government would offer five-year interest-free loans worth up to 20 per cent of the value of new homes costing less than £600,000. It will also offer £12 billion of guarantees covering mortgages worth more than £120 billion. The schemes are intended to help 644,000 people buy homes over the next three years. Within three hours of the announcement, Mr Boles spoke at a reception with senior figures from the property industry hosted by Savills in the heart of Mayfairhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/9947318/Planning-ministers-war-on-the-countryside.html

After the budget news how can the country afford hs2 .they say we will not start paying the loans we owe now for at least five yrs time .yet we are told we can afford 32billion plus to carry people a little faster to Birmingham .there must be a better way to spend this money .where is the sense in this project and on top of that they are going to pay people along the line extra .with all the up evil and upset people and hassle with this ventre how can the govenment carry on spending any more money on it

Hi, just like to add i live in derbyshire and the train is coming thru village taking out a whole street 3 buisnesses,and a farm, in next village the same and a police museum,not to mention all the lovely countryside.We were told there is going to be 14 trains an hour both ways, that they say will be always full, and to top it all it will not stop at our village.Im also at a loss how the country can afford it in this economic climate, just a waste of our money.

After the budget mr Osborne as been found out cooking the books delaying payments to the world bank but still is going ahead with hs2 where is the sense with the man .he could save 32billion plus who wants this project apart from the people who want to make a fast buck .we can not afford this so he must cancel it now

I see we have put on notice of a further down grade of our credit rating after the budget .i would assume this will add to the ever riseing cost of hs 2 .we can not afford this project to get people to Birmingham a little quicker .we should stop this now so we can save the 32billion plus and give the people along the route there lives back the sooner the better

@J.davis: “we should stop this now so we can save the 32billion plus and give the people along the route there lives back the sooner the better”

I don’t suppose you are amongst those along the route – this might explain your visceral opposition?

How many times does it need saying, before the penny drops, HS2 isn’t about NOW – the total spend on HS2 over 3 years has been approx £250million, which in terms of total govt. expenditures during that period, is a drop in the ocean. Only a tiny percentage of spend on HS2 is allocated to the current Parliamentary period.

Forecast spending on welfare is approx £250bn for 2013 – by contrast the Transport budget is £21bn

If it’s savings in overall govt. spend you are looking for, you’ve gone for the wrong target!

Peter get it we can not pay our current debt we delay payments to the world bank it will be five yrs before we start paying our current debt .they start to fast track this project .unless. You know people who work for nothing then we will be borrowing money now and where did all the money come from to date from the credit card? Ii would love to live for today and not to worry about tomorrow like they do thre is no gareantee the project will work .they have not got anything right yet

By the way 39 billion is your figure. And most opponents the most vocal ones anyway do live along the route. Some opponents fall into the why should hs2 not serve their area ie the West Country. Others are just opposed to anything on the grounds of cost. Hs2 is most pessimistic ally expected to have benefits covering costs by a factor of at least 1.7 to one over 30 years. Ant that doesn’t include the much needed capacity that hs2 will bring. So far from a drain on the economy it will be a boost which is why we need hs2.

You compare the DfT declared benefits, which are largely non-cash and in any case open to exageration, with the £ 39 billion cost which is very much hard cash. And even using that measure if you think 1.7 is the worst it could be then you are deluded.

Do you think I just made the £ 39 billion figure up ?

It’s the £ 36.4 billion “capital cost” from the DfT’s value statement which is expressed at 2011 prices, with 2 years of discounting ( at 3.5 % pa ) removed to get to present value now = £ 39 billion.

Now can we please get away from this nonsense about the scheme costing “only” £ 32 billion.

1.7 to 1 over 30 years is not a good deal. It’s equivalent to a compound annual growth rate of 1.78%. This would be a poor return if we had the money in a savings account, but we don’t – we have to borrow it. With interest rates on government debt at over 2%, £34 billion would actually cost over £45 billion. At 1.7 to 1, HS2 would only pay back £40 billion. For every £100 borrowed HS2 will pay back £89. HS2 will lose money and makes no economic sense.

What you fail to realise is the economic outlook for this country is pretty bleak for the next few years (and no one can say how long) we should not be wasting ANY money on a project which has such an uncertain outcome in terms of benefits and overall cost…..it is absolute madness, and no I don’t live along the route I am just concerned to see money in hard times spent wisely !

It is however a cumulative, future debt due to kick in when CR1 stops drawing funds (well that was the plan). In a country drowning in debt, offsetting budgetary advances 2 yrs hence and scrapping benefits to save 1Bn the cost must be considered and be viewed as significant. It will not be delivered on budget. Other capital building schemes (from Hinkley Point CR 2 Housing etc) will also compete for the ‘short term’ skilled labour (its a well known risk of kick starting through construction) pushing up costs. Perhaps we will just allow more ‘necessary’ migration to provide the workforce and all those promised economic benefits for the North will largely accrue to the elite rather than the populace. There is still no information (other than housing) as to how the Nth will flourish unless it is by internal competition with the SE in which case there is no net National gain as is promised. The evidence from other countries is that the money and jobs will move towards the SE from the Nth. As they say “be careful what you wish for” especially with politics as it is today.

A train to the north .the cost 32billion plus .they call it progress and will bring lots of jobs? But there are no jobs to be had up north iam sure that 32 billion spent on enterprise zones and what a lot this would bring to the regions .would guarantee jobs now not in 15 yrs time.so come on you people up north show your northern Spirit and get on to your mp s and put a stop to this govenment folly .lets have jobs now before we end up in crisis like our euro friends and please note what was the first thing they have put a stop to is fast trains the people in Japan have had the bullit train and have been in a finance mess for the past 15yrs plus so they do not work in country’s the size of ours and Japan

I’m intrigued by your inability / unwillingness to comprehend the meaning of the word now and its relevance to past, present and future events?

For the umpteenth time, HS2 spending isn’t allocated to now so urging readers here or anywhwere else for that matter, to write to their MPs about HS2, demanding that they lobby for its cancellation so funding can be priortised elsewhere is not only irrelevant, it’s simply illogical.

Logically you should be urging readers to write to their MPs asking them to lobby for the cessation of CrossRail construction funding so the taxpayer revenues it is currently consuming (as in right now) can be allocated elsewhere, to job creation schemes in Northern peripheral Regions for example?

There isn’t any evidence hs2 costs are mounting. Also hs2 does not only connect Birmingham nor does stage one cost 32 billion nor are the time savings only a few minutes. Apart from these minor details you are correct in what you have written

How are we meant to believe anything HS2 Ltd, DfT or HMG say when they maintained the compensation schemes were fair. generous and inferred they were offering more than people were entitled to and yet hte Lordship decreed their compensation process unlawful/.

The media are mixed in their coverage. Some give space and editorial to the argument others blandly report the argument. The London& Salford based BBC seem to have understood the nuance of the argument; this report was factually balanced and aware but it contained no real editorial comment on the crux of the issue. The overall tone ,at least to me appeared that of the Government position. They are more distant on this matter than on many others.

One has to wonder why the BBC have not opened up this debate more fully given the serious issues at stake; the future of AONBs and SSI’s, the risk with other introduced legislations of ribbon development as in the 1920s and 30s, the fundamentals flaws of the HS2 project. Are they waiting to see how it pans out in the House or perhaps they don’t care? One should not be surprised, as after all, central CPRE endorsed HS2 as ‘green’.

‘The Country’ as contrasted to real countryside has become a ‘sustainable’ development resource for weekenders, ‘escapes’ and summer- field porn. Entertainment. A bit of Ms Marple from the comfort of an urban loft be it in London, Manchester or Leeds. Sustainable for how long and where will it be? At the end of HS2 it would seem! The Chilterns is the only AONB between Greater London and the East Midlands Connurbation .

Perhaps things are really so bad that we are witnessing the collapse of the European Dream (A Continent in balanced and ecological relationship with its land and urban development). The failed American Dream was all Aspiration, Ribbon Development, Infrastructure and Growth at Any Cost. Cameron et Al are having a last Huzzah with this currently we know where it will lead. Perhaps the UK is too populated and lacking in land resources and we are to model ourselves on Singapore and Hongkong. Why else sacrifice a legal entity known as an AONB for a flawed transport scheme? If so the Government needs to own up, present the true argument in order that the masquerade can be argued legally and morally in a direct, open manner. That the matters are not obfuscated in legal arguments about when a plan is not a plan. This masquerade is costing a fortune before it can be argued by the nation and legally challenged. It also seems contrary to the spirit of UK common law and EU Law. Any MPs in either place want to raise the issue or introduce a bill to change the law or is this false democracy too politically useful?

There is also the darker political dimension,the original plan developed by Lord Adonis with its callous, destructive route through virgin countryside in South whereas after Birmingham the route is better at following transport corridors and the amount of tunnelling (particularly Manchester’s 9 miles) compares prejudicially with the plans for the AONB and Ealing/Uxbridge . It is interesting to plot the environmental/rural damage on a political map. It the UK was ‘Just’ Rural communities would qualify as minorities. They are certainly overlooked and treated prejudicially by all parties who court them, save the Greens. Such is the myopia of the urbanites many of whom don’t know the names of common animals and where meat comes from. What cannot be explained is the Coalition Governments intentions. They have adopted a scheme they considered flawed and run with it, unmodified to real extent. They have also tried to cheat their own supporters and electorate of proper compensation. This was done knowingly and without due political, moral or ethical diligence/governance. This is a Cabinet that spends huge amounts of parliamentary time/money on valid issues such as gay marriage and Levenson, but that has pushed through a policy/plan that will create hundreds of thousands of victims by its own actions without a moral qualm, Indeed with deliberate intent to harm.. It is in the game of politics that there is moral relativism and ‘worthy’ causes and lost causes. The choice/rationality between these causes is not absolute it is arbitrary and political . It is of concern that a plan that is not a plan has been pushed through without environmental consideration and without proper financial/social ethical and academic consideration.

Given the above and the ability of the Cabinet to do otherwise there is only one conclusion. The Cabinets actions were deliberate,strategic and intentional knowing the harm it would do socially,environmentally, economically and politically. They either lacked the will or the courage to rework the project before entering it into Parliament. The Paving Bill, erodes what little democracy was left and seems as though it is to supplant the legal intention of the Hybrid Bill as I have commented before. The use of arms length HS2 ltd as their stormtroopers in the field does not remove their role in direct causality and responsibilty. Nor can they hide behind “a green light “from the judiciary for HS2 for they did not get that.

HS2 is part of a wider Parliamentary agenda that has yet to be publicly revealed. It was legally declared an attempted land grab. It is likely this new-to-be transport corridor (through prime AONB and Greenbelt which will bisected by landmass;the worst fate for a landmass and when the roads and other ‘infrastructure’ are in place) is a Trojan Horse that the residuum ‘blighted land’ will be handed over to the developers (one way or another) for the next project Housing. You will have noticed that this is becoming topical. Where will 10 Bn worth of houses be built by developers? Where the commercial as opposed to national need is. Perhaps the Cabinet hope that by association that this influx of newbie- aspirational people living in battery-housing whom Cameron is courting/championing will form a new loyal conservative following that did not know or care about the old countryside and this will bolster the losses they incur in the course of the build. Those who read the Sunday Times will have noticed that Amersham and environs ranked as no 5 of the best places to live . ‘The Gateway to the Chilterns” and much else. When this Government has finished with it where will it rank and perhaps importantly what will be the capital value loss to Bucks and the Chilterns AONB. What price Lord Ouseley, pray tell, is fair and lawful compensation in this context? I’m off to paint the Chilterns whilst they are still peaceful resource for the spirit.

“In this game that we’re playing, we can’t win. Some kinds of failures are better than other kinds, that’s all” Orwell ‘1984’

Little bit of synchronicity that illustrates my pointhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/9937464/Young-primary-school-pupils-will-no-longer-learn-about-caring-for-environment.html ………… However in a consultation issued by the Government today, caring for the environment has been pushed back to Year 4 when pupils are aged 8 to 9 and the message changed to “pupils must recognise that environments are constantly changing and that this can sometimes pose dangers to specific habitats”. ……………. Environmentalists fear that the message has been “watered down” in order to fit in with the Government’s agenda to develop the countryside. “This is obviously not an oversight or an accidental omission. The government [sic], perhaps understandably, want the next generation to be armed for the “global race” and environmentalism can fly in the face of this.

We should invite chambers of commerce on y route who keep telling us how massive the benefits are to a meeting to explain as every time I ask I get buzzwords like connectivity,access to markets,bring people closer together etc